A QUEST for innovation and a drive to speed up the entire construction process while focusing on efficiency and quality is spearheading the ongoing expansion at Al Kobaisi Group, which is now poised to launch its latest venture.

One of Bahrain’s longest established construction conglomerates enfolding an umbrella of companies, the group is now setting up a state-of-the-art concrete batching plant in Hidd using equipment and technology from Italy’s Marcantonini, a manufacturer of concrete batching plant and concrete distribution systems. The plant is expected to be the first of its kind in Bahrain and will also serve as a cement storage and bagging facility, while producing readymix for the market and meeting the requirements of a new block-making factory to be built alongside. Designs for the plant, which is scheduled to come on stream early next year, are currently being finalised.

The project is just one of a number of ventures on the drawing boards of the ambitious Al Kobaisi Group under the helm of managing director Abdullah Essa Al Kobaisi, who continues to scour the far reaches of the globe in search of the latest technology to facilitate the construction sector in Bahrain.

“After three years of recession, the Bahrain market is now showing signs of improvement, thanks to government strategies especially in the housing sector and we are gearing up for the next phase of growth,” he says. “We are now setting up the latest batching plant and a block factory as well as boosting our capacity and investing in new technology in the manufacture of concrete products.”

“We are also continuing our quest for the latest technology that supports our activities as well as the construction industry in the region – including better solutions at a lower cost and systems that keep the construction process clean and efficient,” he adds.

In line with the uptrend in the market, Al Kobaisi has astutely strategised to address the anticipated upsurge in demand for basic building materials such as cement, readymix concrete, blocks and steel rebar.

The group, which currently operates five batching plants, is setting up its sixth facility, which will incorporate the latest technology, offer higher capacity and quality of concrete while minimising the environmental impact as it is thermally and acoustically insulated with 40-mm sandwich panels.

The batching plant is of the tower type – which in addition to having the integrated features of the horizontal type of plants – offers the advantage of larger storage capacities, high production yields and the benefit of gravity batching, says Lamberto Marcantonini, president of Marcantonini, who is currently personally supporting the design and installation of the new plant.

Marcantonini plants have been installed around the globe, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, France and Spain.

Another added advantage is that the plant requires a smaller footprint because of its vertical configuration, Gabriele Falchetti, a sales executive for Marcantonini, indicates.

“The tower batching plant will comprise a 36-m-high aggregate storage system with a capacity of 800 cu m, seven cement silos with a capacity to store 3,500 tonnes of cement as well as a 3.35-cu-m twin-shaft concrete mixer for the production of readymix concrete and a 2.5-cu-m planetary unit to serve the block factory via a flying bucket, that will deliver concrete at a high speed of one batch per minute,” says Falchetti. “It also features two cement big bag unloading stations, two cement truck filling points, and two cement truck discharge points. The batching plant will have a capacity of 180 cu m of concrete per hour.”

Al Kobaisi ... keen to popularise his complete building system.

Apart from supplying clients, the plant will also meet the in-house readymix requirements of the group’s Kobaisi Building Systems (KBS), an innovative building system introduced on the market in May last year.

The plant to be installed at Al Kobaisi’s facility will produce high quality concrete at a lower temperature of around 23 deg C as the aggregate is kept enclosed in a silo; dosing is accurate and the water-cement ratio will be optimised. Importantly, the batching plant will result in less noise as well as air pollution, thanks to high-efficiency filters, Marcantonini states.

According to the company, other benefits include a considerable reduction of mechanical elements used in the batching process, resulting in considerable power savings and the simplification of the system and of maintenance; and a decrease of the cycle timings for the production compared to other types of plants because of the absence of conveyor belts or skip for aggregates movements.

The cement storage and bagging facility at the batching plant, which will have a capacity to produce 550 bags per hour, will help address the cement shortage faced by Bahrain, Al Kobaisi points out. The group will import cement in bulk and repackage it into 50 kg bags or load directly into cement trucks.

Within its production facility which covers a 50,000-sq-m area in Hidd, the group will also introduce a new block-making facility which, apart from standard blocks, will also produce innovative lightweight blocks produced using silica wood.

The block factory is aimed at meeting the anticipated increase in demand for blocks from numerous social housing schemes being launched in Bahrain – which if not met could hamper progress on these developments and increase costs, Al Kobaisi emphasises.

Elaborating on the lightweight silica wood blocks, he says: “We are joining hands with an Italian company to produce blocks made of scrap wood, which is treated, processed and fired to produce silica wood that can be used as aggregate or as lightweight blocks that have insulation properties.”

Among other ventures, Al Kobaisi states that an Italy-based rebar bending and cutting facility is looking at relocating its production facilities – lock, stock and barrel – to the group’s complex at Hidd.

“In partnership with the Italian company, we will be offering cut and bend rebar to clients throughout the Gulf region,” he says, indicating that the group will offer a complete service including procurement of the rebar.

This service will also relieve contractors of the task of procuring rebar as well as finishing it to the specifications they desire for their projects. “It will prove cost effective, despite the cost of transportation/shipping, as it eliminates the wastage of rebar,” Al Kobaisi adds.

The group’s massive production facility at Hidd houses the KBS production facility as well as the adjoining Kobaisi Precast Company (KPC). Representing an investment of more than $66 million, the KBS facility is fed by the group’s satellite factories for blocks, readymix concrete, glass and aluminium to produce the “revolutionary” building system utilising the latest CAD/CAM computer systems. The patented building system was personally developed by Al Kobaisi with the help of Nuspl, a leading German precast equipment manufacturer.

Using this state-of-the-art technology for the prefabrication of block walls and the concrete elements in a quality-controlled environment, the company can now produce a fully integrated building system with a capacity to handle three houses per day, or 90 per month. The system incorporates prefabricated structural and architectural blockwall products, including decorative elements, cladding and even the cabling and window frames. The circulation line can produce flat precast products such as lattice girder floors, double-tee, solid, lightweight concrete and sandwich wall panels as well as cladding, fabricated in a rotating automated production process.

According to Al Kobaisi, KBS provides a complete building solution from design, production, transportation to on-site erection that can facilitate affordable housing. As well as the reduced construction programme involving an estimated saving of 70 per cent in the time needed, the requirements for formwork, scaffolding, and labour as well as building material wastage are all significantly reduced.

The system allows key building components including footings, wall panels and roofs to be manufactured on the production line which substantially reduces the time taken to transport materials to site. According to Al Kobaisi, the benefits of the automated system include quality assured production and an estimated cost saving on a home of 40 per cent compared to traditional building methods. Other benefits include lower maintenance requirements and substantially reduced on-site labour costs.

The company has recently erected two mock-up houses for a Diyar Al Muharraq housing project. In addition, it is involved in building a cyclotron facility at the King Hamad University, which is in the finishing stages. This highly specialised building has extra-thick concrete walls and roof to ensure radiation control and protection.

Al Kobaisi Group is also involved in building a total of 600 housing units including villas and apartments in Sanad, Dumistan, Arad, Ekker and Riffa using the KBS system.

It is now looking at exporting its technology to other countries in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia – where it has received keen interest – Yemen, Iraq, and Egypt.

Meanwhile, KPC’s facility is claimed to have one of the largest nameplate capacities of hollow-core in Bahrain. It features eight hollow-core production lines, each 150 m long by 1.2 m, with a capacity to produce 1,440 sq m per shift of hollow-core in various sizes. Equipped with the latest extruder technology made by Weiler of Germany, KPC can produce slabs with widths ranging from 340 to 1,200 mm, thicknesses of 150 to 500 mm and lengths up to 22 m.

To support its precast concrete business, Al Kobaisi has just taken delivery of a Prefamax semi-trailer from Faymonville of Belgium – the first of its kind in Bahrain – which can transport five to six precast panels simultaneously in an upright fashion, easing and speeding up the transportation of panels which is traditionally carried out using A-frame panel trucks.

Another innovative technology that Al Kobaisi intends to introduce shortly on the market is premixed mortar. He is currently in talks with a German company with a view to offering the construction sector a premixed mortar that is supported by ancillary equipment such as mobile silos, which will be installed at site to help speed up construction work.

“This is another example of our efforts to ease the construction process,” concludes Al Kobaisi.